THE MAN WHO STAYED BEHIND
Rittenberg, Sidney & Amanda Bennett
Language: English
Published by NY. 1993. Simon & Schuster, 1993
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Chris Fessler, Bookseller, Howell, MI, U.S.A.Chris Fessler, Bookseller
AbeBooks seller since March 17, 1998
Condition: Used
£ 15.55
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
red & blue 1/2 cloth hardcover 8vo. (octavo). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. shadow from old address type label on front flyleaf, otherwise contents free of markings. dustwrapper in fine cond. couple of tiny scratches, not torn or price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition. first printing (#1 in # line). 476p. b&w map of china with inset. glossy b&w photos & illustrations. index. autobiography. memoirs. history of china. communist revolution. politics. ~IN 1946, A YOUNG AMERICAN MARCHED WITH THE REVOLUTIONARIES ACROSS WAR~TORN CHINA. OVER THE NEXT THREE DECADES HE REMAINED TO FIGHT THEIR FIGHTS, KEEP THEIR SECRETS, AND BEFRIEND THEIR LEADERS. HE WAS INVITED INTO THEIR INNER CIRCLES OF POWER, AND SURVIVED 16 YEARS IN THEIR PRISONS. NOW HE HAS RETURNED TO TELL HIS STORY. "I never meant to stay in China . " And so begins this gripping true~life saga of adventure, love, commitment, betrayal, despair, and hope. Sidney Rittenberg is The Man Who Stayed Behind. Recounted in the best tradition of epic storytelling, Sidney Rittenberg's story is destined to take a place beside the classics of its genre. Like T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, this is the story of a man who voyaged deep into a secret world and returned to tell the tale. Like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, it is the story of a man who looked evil in the face and survived. Like John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, it is the story of a man who followed his convictions wherever they led him. Sidney Rittenberg's story is an eyewitness account of history as it unfolded. He went to China with the U.S. military in the mid~1940s. Deeply committed to helping the people, he sought out the Chinese Communists in their wartime headquarters in Yanan. He joined in overland marches and lived alongside the revolutionaries, taking part in secret meetings. He argued dogma with Mao Zedong, mused philosophy with Zhou Enlai, danced with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. He shows a seldom~seen personal side of the revolutionaries: an insomniac Mao prowling the villages at night, his bodyguard fifty yards behind; a playful Mao, dancing to the strains of "Turkey in the Straw"; an enraged Mao, face contorted with fury, stomping away from a meeting with Khrushchev. Rittenberg also offers the only inside view available today of the takeover of power during the Cultural Revolution of a major Chinese government body. He shows us firsthand the inhumanity of the Communist regime: His is an inspiring account of a triumphant struggle over madness and despair in prison during six years in solitary confinement on trumped~up spy charges. Then he tells of ten more years, a decade later, spent in solitary confinement alongside other political prisoners who fell afoul of the dominant faction during the Cultural Revolution. He presents an unforgettable prison portrait of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, condemned finally to the very prison where she had sent Rittenberg nearly a decade earlier. There is also the touching love story of a wife who pledged to wait for ten years for the man she loved~and who was forced by fate to make good on that promise. Sidney Rittenberg's story is one that will be read on many different levels. It is a serious book that will be must reading for China~watchers and scholars alike. But more than that, it is both a compelling personal story and a poignant and thoughtprovoking exploration of some of the most profound political and moral issues of the century.…
Seller Inventory # 5242103
- Title
- THE MAN WHO STAYED BEHIND
- Author
- Rittenberg, Sidney & Amanda Bennett
- Publisher
- NY. 1993. Simon & Schuster
- Publication year
- 1993
- Dust jacket
- Dust Jacket Included
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0671735950
- ISBN 13
- 9780671735951
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Seller catalogs
- autobiography, history of china, memoirs
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
--Sheila Melvin, "South China Morning Post"
“"The Man Who Stayed Behind" hooked me from start to finish. These are rare, tragic, sometimes startling insights into Mao’s China at its self-destructive worst. Whether you sympathize with Sidney Rittenberg or not (and there will be times when you have doubts) he was there as history was made and unmade, and became part of its scar tissue. His prison portrait of Madame Mao as the shrieking harridan of the Red Terror will stay with me a long time. And his own personal story is an amazing tale in its own right.”—Sterling Seagrave, author of "The Soong Dynasty"
“A gripping story about an idealistic young American who freely cast his lot with the Chinese revolution only to be struck down by that revolution at the floodtide of its success. . . . One lives with him through inhuman cruelty and the mindless horror of sixteen years of solitary confinement.”—Leonard Woodcock, First American Ambassador to China
“An extraordinary and revealing account of how someone was swept into the Chinese Communist movement and stayed with it through its many blunders, excesses, and cruelties. . . . A fascinating autobiography—honest, moving, chilling, and quite illuminating.”—Dr. Michel Oksenberg, Former National Security Council Aid on China Policy
“["The Man Who Stayed Behind"] reads like a riveting historical novel. But there’s no fiction here . . . it’s Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the Long March, solitary confinement, despair, romance, and redemption. Sidney Rittenberg’s story is a classic.”—Mike Wallace, CBS-TV "60 Minutes"
“Sidney Rittenberg has had one of the most remarkable lives of anyone I have ever met. The story of his life is not only a fascinating and valuable witness to one of the greatest historical upheavals of [the twentieth] century, but is a vivid testimony to the power of good in the midst of evil.”—Billy Graham
“I found "The Man Who Stayed Behind" hard to put down. No American has ever merged as fully, hopefully—and disastrously—with Communist China as Rittenberg did for four decades from the 1940s. The book is lively, poignant, and revealing. Rittenberg offers a window on Beijing politics that anyone seriously interested in China’s recent past and likely future should read.”—Ross Terrill, author of "China in Our Time"
""The Man Who Stayed Behind" hooked me from start to finish. These are rare, tragic, sometimes startling insights into Mao's China at its self-destructive worst. Whether you sympathize with Sidney Rittenberg or not (and there will be times when you have doubts) he was there as history was made and unmade, and became part of its scar tissue. His prison portrait of Madame Mao as the shrieking harridan of the Red Terror will stay with me a long time. And his own personal story is an amazing tale in its own right."--Sterling Seagrave, author of "The Soong Dynasty"
"A gripping story about an idealistic young American who freely cast his lot with the Chinese revolution only to be struck down by that revolution at the floodtide of its success. . . . One lives with him through inhuman cruelty and the mindless horror of sixteen years of solitary confinement."--Leonard Woodcock, First American Ambassador to China
"Sidney Rittenberg has had one of the most remarkable lives of anyone I have ever met. The story of his life is not only a fascinating and valuable witness to one of the greatest historical upheavals of [the twentieth] century, but is a vivid testimony to the power of good in the midst of evil."--Billy Graham
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Chris Fessler, Bookseller
Howell, MI, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since March 17, 1998
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